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Here’s a new update to our analysis of how small-businesses are responding to the COVID-19 crisis using @Homebase time clock data, done with @alexbartik, Marianne Bertrand, Feng Lin & @rothstein_jesse: https://irle.berkeley.edu/labor-market-impacts-of-covid-19-on-hourly-workers-in-small-and-medium-sized-businesses-four-facts-from-homebase-data-2/
Much of the hours reductions we identified in previous updates persists, but some firms are reopening. As of last week, about one-third of firms remained fully shutdown. That’s down from a high of 45% in April.
Below, we visualize the ratio of hours worked at each firm each week relative to late January. Hours collapse in mid-March, and nearly half of firms shutdown by early April. But over the past two weeks, a fraction of firms reopen.
Much of the bounce back in hours is attributable to some firms reopening.
Firms in states where shutdown orders have been rolled back are more likely to have reopened. Hours were 35% higher in these states than their respective low, compared to 26% in other states. Still, hours remain far below their baseline averages in all regions and industries.
Of the firms that ever shutdown, about 30% have since reopened and remained open through last week.
By last week, these re-opened firms had collectively regained about 35% of their baseline hours and 40% of their baseline employment levels. And they’re mainly rehiring workers they employed before shutting down.
Firms that shutdown have only restored about 14% of their pre-shutdown hours. Two-thirds of those missing hours are due to most firms remaining shutdown. Another 19% are still lost because reopened firms are operating at reduced scale.
Thanks again to @joinhomebase for sharing their data, and to the teams at @CAPolicyLab, @UChiPovertyLab, @RustandyCenter, @ChicagoBooth, and @IRLE for helping us put this together.
